Carzy Zarx’s PC Gaming Emporium - Catch Up on All the Latest PC Gaming Related News

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The second part of the gaming news:

Epic is reportedly cooking up a Disney extraction shooter, and suggestions staff are lukewarm on it are 'not reflective of the ambitions of the Disney collaboration'
https://www.pcgamer.com/gaming-industry/epic-is-reportedly-cooking-up-a-disney-extraction-shooter-and-suggestions-staff-are-lukewarm-on-it-are-not-reflective-of-the-ambitions-of-the-disney-collaboration/
In the wake of severe layoffs last month, Epic's increasingly looking to the House of Mouse to shore up its flagging fortunes, per a recent report from Bloomberg.
At the time of the layoffs, Epic CEO Tim Sweeney wrote that the company was "spending significantly more" than it was making thanks to a slump in engagement with Fortnite—far and away Epic's chief money-printing instrument—since 2025. "Despite Fortnite remaining one of the most successful games in the world, we've had challenges delivering consistent Fortnite magic with every season," wrote Sweeney.
But Sweeney and other Epic direction-setters hope Mickey can sort it, it seems. Disney's $1.5 billion investment in Epic two years ago will bear its first fruit in November, in the form of a Disney-themed extraction shooter starring the corporation's characters. Which sounds like a great way to get a lot more videos of Goofy melodramatically buying the farm, so I'm all in favour.
>> Disney characters with guns… I’m too old for this sh*t.

Overwatch's hero ban system is being reworked, which means we may be able to ignore the role-limit rule and ban a 5th hero
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/fps/overwatchs-hero-ban-system-is-being-reworked-which-means-we-may-be-able-to-ignore-the-role-limit-rule-and-ban-a-5th-hero/
How do you go about deciding who to ban in an Overwatch game? (...)
Overwatch introduced the hero ban system back in Season 16, answering the prayers of players everywhere. But the catch is that out of the now 51 heroes, only a maximum of four can be banned per match, two from each team. This is decided by each player ranking their top three bans, with heroes that get the most votes having a higher probability of getting banned for that match.
(...)
"The next system we’re spending time improving is Hero Bans," associate game director Alec Dawson explains in a blog post. "We believe there is room to help you make more informed bans and eliminate some of the instances where it doesn't feel like the system is reflecting your choices.
>> The Antartic Peninsula is also back, but reworked (link).

Todd Howard says Starfield's NG+ was misunderstood and defends Bethesda's new U-turn on how it works: 'You can tell us if we're done our job right'
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rpg/todd-howard-says-starfields-ng-was-misunderstood-and-defends-bethesdas-new-u-turn-on-how-it-works-you-can-tell-us-if-were-done-our-job-right/
Starfield's recent Free Lanes update has brought changes large and small to Bethesda's somewhat-maligned space RPG, with one of the biggest being how the game's NG+ mode works. To talk about that we'll need to briefly cover the game's ending, so: spoilers ahead. Obviously.

Despite rumors of a GTA 6-inspired delay, Fable studio says it's 'excited to welcome you back to Albion in autumn 2026'
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rpg/despite-rumors-of-a-gta-6-inspired-delay-fable-studio-says-its-excited-to-welcome-you-back-to-albion-in-autumn-2026/
The long-awaited Fable reboot is currently slated to drop in the fall of 2026, more than 15 years after the release of Fable 3. It's a pretty big deal for Microsoft and developer Playground Games. Also coming in the fall of 2026 is Grand Theft Auto 6, the biggest deal of them all, which is set to launch—for consoles—on November 19. Is a dodge-the-bullet delay happening as a result?
It's happened before, probably most famously leading up to the launch of Cyberpunk 2077, and talk of a possible similar pause for Fable was kicked into gear by Jeff Grubb of Giant Bomb, who said during a recent stream (via RPS) that he'd heard the game "has been pushed internally."
(...)
Grubb is well-known as an 'insider guy,' with a pretty solid track record on knowing things that aren't widely known. And he may ultimately be proven correct on this one. For now, though, Playground and Microsoft are sticking to their guns: While they haven't issued a statement directly contradicting it, they have subsequently repeated the "autumn 2026" launch window on social media.

Temu-tier Palworld imitator Pickmon changes a single title letter 'to better align with our brand identity' and definitely not for any other reason, guys, honest
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/survival-crafting/temu-tier-palworld-imitator-pickmon-changes-a-single-title-letter-to-better-align-with-our-brand-identity-and-definitely-not-for-any-other-reason-guys-honest/
Last month, a Steam listing emerged for Pickmon, an upcoming creature-collecting survival game that gained immediate attention through the Olympian ballsiness of its visual knockoffery. Pickmon's trailers and marketing imagery featured designs with near-identical similarity to characters, creatures, and objects from Pokémon, Final Fantasy, Zelda, Overwatch, and even Palworld—which, infamously, had sparked its own controversy by inviting similar comparisons.
Pickmon, however, was a name not long for this world, because its official X account announced last week that the game has undergone a bold rebranding—by which I mean a single letter in its title has changed. Pickmon is dead. Long live Pickmos.

A 'free kit frenzy' mode for cheapskates arrives in Marathon this week
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/fps/a-free-kit-frenzy-mode-for-cheapskates-arrives-in-marathon-this-week/
Marathon is running another experimental playlist ahead of its next balancing patch. Following successful tests of a duos mode that Bungie plans to make a "real feature" in Season 2, the next playlist introduces what game director Joe Ziegler calls a "free kit frenzy."

WoW's Burning Crusade Classic servers are removing the time-honoured tradition of dungeon boosting
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/world-of-warcraft/wows-burning-crusade-classic-servers-are-removing-the-time-honoured-tradition-of-dungeon-boosting/
One integral part of World of Warcraft back in the day was powerlevelling: I remember a starry-eyed Harvey watching Protection Paladins on YouTube sweeping through hordes of the Scarlet Crusade for a group of lucky levellers. I was completely unaware of the economic underbelly supporting it, but it sure looked cool to see someone soloing a dungeon.
It was doubly helpful because levelling back then was a bit of a pain. Even without any fancy tricks in retail, levelling up an alt account today doesn't take much time—but back in the Burning Crusade? It was a journey. It also helped you rake in gold as a nice bonus, something that was also in more meaningfully short supply.
If you're hoping to recreate this experience on the WoW Burning Crusade Classic: Anniversary realms, though, you'll be denied the pleasure. As revealed on the official forums by community manager Kaivax, Blizzard has stepped in to stop dungeon boosting.